Does too much yeast/gunk in the bottle create gushers?

[the-adjunct-hippie]

I just bottled an IPA 6 days ago and I put one in the fridge last night and cracked one because I just couldn't wait, and to my total surprise rather than under carbonation I got a mild geyser. I noticed there was a lot of sediment in the bottle (~1 inch). I then went ahead and refrigerated the rest of my bottles, cracked a few, and some were worse than others but the "good" ones also had the least yeast sediment caked at the bottom.

I'm guessing I just ended up diving a little too deep with my racking cane and too much yeast ended up in the bottles.

Is that why I'm getting gushers?

 

[doug293cz]

No, the amount of yeast in the bottle does not affect final carbonation level. More yeast may make it carbonate faster, however. The level of carbonation is determined by how much fermentable sugar is in the beer at bottling. If you add too much priming sugar, or have to much residual fermentable sugar in the beer (fermentation not actually complete at bottling time), then you can get over carbonated bottles.

The other thing that often causes gushers is infection with wild bacteria or yeast, that can ferment sugars (and other components of the beer) that brewers' yeast cannot ferment.

Brew on

 

[the-adjunct-hippie]

Very strange. I used a brewing calculator for batch priming and used even a touch less for the style/temp/batch size. I can't figure it out.

 

[ong]

That is an insane amount of sediment in bottled beer. I do suspect it causes more nucleation sites for bubbles to form on, although it’s not going to make the beer have MORE CO2.

Chilling the bottles for a few days or a week (and then keeping them at that temp) will both help compact the sediment cake and force more CO2 into solution from the headspace.

 

[dmtaylor]

Yeast, no. Sediment, yes. Nucleation sites.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Yeast, no. Sediment, yes. Nucleation sites.

So, if I gently add a spoonful of harvested slurry (from primary) to a glass of beer, it will generate a lot of foam?

Hmm... I have some old slurry and a not-so-good beer....

 

[dmtaylor]

So, if I gently add a spoonful of harvested slurry (from primary) to a glass of beer, it will generate a lot of foam?

Hmm... I have some old slurry and a not-so-good beer....

No, but if you add a spoonful of harvested slurry to a Sodastream bottle with some water and press the button a couple times to carbonate, observe what happens to your walls and ceiling within 30 feet.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I don't understand this: "Yeast, no. Sediment, yes."

What are you saying could be in the OP's bottle that might cause gushing not related to over-carbonation?

 

[divrack]

What ong said, but you might need a long time sitting for it to compact enough that it doesn't all froth up on opening, depending on the sediment.
Alternatively you might have an infection.

 

[dmtaylor]

I don't understand this: "Yeast, no. Sediment, yes."

What are you saying could be in the OP's bottle that might cause gushing not related to over-carbonation?

Too much yeast isn't hurting. But too much of ANY sediment is. It's not that an excess of yeast is fermenting anything really really really fast and that's causing gushers. It's the fact that there's an inch of crap at the bottom of the bottles. Hops, proteins, fruit, or anything else at the bottom will cause the same or worse effect than just a bit of yeast at the bottom. The gushiest bottled beers I have ever had were the ones that had a ton of fruit or hop matter in the bottles. Rack to secondary, tertiary, quaternary, whatever it takes to keep that crap out of the bottles.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Ok, so then I'm still confused why my experiment of adding slurry to a glass of beer wouldn't cause an overflow.

Is it possible that since you had that much stuff suspended in the beer maybe it just wasn't done fermenting? Perhaps you had some wild yeast from the "ton of fruit or hop matter"?

I was trying to help this guy who does one bottle per batch with a huge amount of trub:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/beer-wont-carbonate-whatsoever.653568/
He doesn't mention anything about gushing, says it's the best one.

 

[dmtaylor]

Ok, so then I'm still confused why my experiment of adding slurry to a glass of beer wouldn't cause an overflow.

Instantaneous depressurization when popping a bottle cap vs. an already depressurized glass of beer. Enormous difference based on physical science.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Makes sense, thanks